


A Modern Boy of Beauty

by imochan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Implied Relationship, M/M, minor foul language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3709624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imochan/pseuds/imochan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In the winter of 1976, Eddie Whist boarded the train to Uttoxeter."</p>
<p>Originally written for the Shacking Up SeSa, 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Modern Boy of Beauty

In the winter of 1976, Eddie Whist boarded the train to Uttoxeter. It was a weakly chill day, dripping out the ends with the dirty slush of the streets, the slobbering of the icicles on the overhangs. Eddie was grateful for it: nothing worse than traveling in the cold, alone, to a place you didn't even want to really be, he always thought. He'd left at dawn to catch the early train out of King's Cross – platforms always were crowded round the holidays, after all – and walked the twenty minutes from his Mum's flat to the station, trouser-hems frayed and soaking, an early Christmas present of a newly-knitted jumper in his satchel, ears and nose pink with the weather, eggs and sausage in his belly. And now, hardly a soul in sight, train on time, and the knowledge that he'd have money enough for heat, over Christmas. Not a bad day, eh, he thought, kicking his boots clean against the steps of the car, climbing aboard. Not too bad, even if he'd be back and working long hours at the site again soon enough, with those miserable burly blokes that made him feel like he was Teeny Eeny Eddie again, third former who always got his meal money beat from his pockets.

The train whistled, creaked; there was the unintelligible shout of a conductor from the platform, dissolving into steam and melting ice. _Buck up, Eddie,_ he thought, shouldering his bag, hand fumbling on the latch of a compartment door as the train shuddered to life, crawling forward.

"Oh – " said Eddie, satchel bumping on the doorframe. There was a boy in the compartment, shoulders hunched against the window, dirty heavy boots pulled up onto the seat, with the kind of long, ragged, dark hair that would have made Mum go screaming for the scissors. " – sorry, mate."

"S'all right," said the boy, something lazy in his voice. "Plenty of room."

"Yeah?" said Eddie Whist. "Y'don't mind?"

"Yeah," said the boy, pointing to the empty seat across the way with a tilt of a pale chin. "Don't mind."

"Ta." Eddie dumped his satchel, sighing as he hit the seat with hands folded on his stomach, fingers drumming the tattoo of the train's wheels, watching the grey walls of London skid by. He could feel the boy's eyes on him; when he turned back, they were there, lazy and unwavering, smudges of bright black in the shadow of his brows.

"So – ah," said Eddie, straightening his shoulders. "Where you headed, then?"

"Out," said the boy; cleared his throat. "You know?"

"Headed out?" said Eddie Whist, who figured he probably didn't quite know, actually. "Just, out?"

"Well," the boy rolled his shoulders, sat up in the seat, boots leaving a streak of mud when he shifted his feet. He tossed his hair back, and Eddie could see the sharp line of his nose now, the high cheekbones, the sulking nestle of his mouth, red and chapped from the winter. "Of the city. To Crothswaite," he said. "Change over in Birmingham, I guess."

Eddie Whist was starting to reckon the bloke was either mad or hung over – little young for the drink, though. "Bit of a haul, ain't it?"

The boy shrugged. "Worth it – seen enough of this fucking city for until I'm sixty."

"Oh yeah?" said Eddie

"Mind if I smoke?" said the boy, instead.

"Er," said Eddie. "Oh. Nah, go on."

"Ta," said the boy, and tapped a cigarette from a pack, shifting again in his seat, tugging the edges of his leather coat around him. His fingers were white, thin, agile and flighty. Eddie'd seen hands like that on his uncle, a pianist (Mum called them lock-picking hands: doors, hearts). His knuckles were red, puffy, scabbed.

"Got in a scrape, did you?" Eddie jabbed his chin down, eyes on the marks.

The boy looked up over his light; there was a long, slow draw of smoke, mouth curling in imitation. "Summat like that," he said, and the train jostled ash onto his jeans. He brushed it away with a flip of his hand, and Eddie saw more red, on the outside of his wrist, over the forearm, sort of in the shape of –

"What, you let a dog get at you?"

The boy laughed, elbows digging into his thighs as he leaned forward. "A dog _and_ a bitch," he grinned.

"Er," said Eddie Whist. "Ha-ha?"

"Family," the boy grunted, mouth twisted to the side, smoke curling from his lips. "Forget it."

"Ah," said Eddie Whist, though it wasn't really at all. More like, _Christ, what could you mean._

"Forget it," said the boy again, and exhaled to the window, frosting it with his breath. "Where you headed?"

"Uttoxeter," said Eddie. "Work's up there, was just visiting me Mum for the hols."

"Not Christmas yet," said the boy, cigarette between his lips. "What're you doing going _back_ to work?"

"Better money if you work the shift no one wants," laughed Eddie. "Eh?"

The boy shrugged. "Dunno. Is there?"

"Well, yeah."

"Wouldn't know," the boy stretched, eyes rolling, mouth twisted. "Never worked a fucking day in my life."

_Bloody posh wanker,_ thought Eddie Whist, before he could stop and think himself out of it.

"Think I've got to, now, though," said the boy, into the sharp silence, shoulders rolling forward, his gaze narrowed on his linked fingers, cigarette between them.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," the boy grinned, rue chapping his mouth. "Got any openings in _Uttoxeter_?"

"Not by the looks of what you need, mate," laughed Eddie. "Sorry."

"Nah, I've got school again soon, either way," the boy shrugged, standing to tip the window open, and toss his unfinished cigarette out. "Couldn't work until the summer, I figure. Who knows where I'll be by then, eh?"

"Not Crothswaite?"

The boy laughed, hands shoved in his pocket when he slumped back to the seat again, leather jacket rucked up around his waist. "Nah. S'not – it's just a mate, up there," he said. "For the hols. Figured I'd go visit him."

"For the hols." There were scrapes on his hands, thought Eddie Whist. Got into a fight with a _bitch_ , and no bag to speak of. Mum'd call him a stray, he thought, and figured maybe he ought to buy him something to eat.

"Yeah," said the boy, sharply. "Just for now, and then it's back to school, isn't it?"

"Hated school," admitted Eddie. "Yours all right, then?"

"Brilliant," said the boy, like Eddie was ready to throw a punch at him, or something. "It's the best bloody thing in the world. If you've got mates."

"Huh – " said Eddie, and thought, _ow_. "Right. So you got mates enough, then?"

"Only thing worth having." The boy's eyes fixed on the window, even though it was just the grey walls of factories, brown hulks of barnyards, the white-cloaked spread of fields. "If you can hold onto it long enough not to fuck it up, right?"

"Optimistic," Eddie muttered – though he never much liked the taste of sarcasm.

"Just enough t'keep me alive," the boy smirked. "And it's worked so far."  
  
"Smart lad," said Eddie, but realized he might not have meant it, after all.

The boy grunted, and in Northampton Station he offered Eddie a quarter of a crushed corned-beef sandwich from the pocket of his jacket, which Eddie was suspicious of (funny, scared more of a foodstuff than a stranger, thought Eddie Whist, and chewed through stale bread), but ate anyway. The boy polished his hunk off like he might have been starving, but didn't say anything else about it, eyes dark and lazy, and he might have been daring Eddie to try, just _try_ , to offer him sympathy.

When the doors in Northampton closed, the wind pushed in with an old biddy and a businessman in a suit. They passed by the compartment, but the boy rubbed his hand together against the cold and licked crumbs from his lips as he rummaged around in his jacket pocket for something. When the train whistled and pulled out again, wheels creaking under their feet, the boy pulled a striped scarf from his pocket – bright red and gold and looking awfully warm, and, well, Eddie Whist wasn't one for irregularities, but it seemed like such an awful lot of scarf, too, for just one pocket.

"Was a hell of a lot warmer in London, huh," muttered the boy, looping it around his neck as many times as it'd go.

"Yeah," grinned Eddie. "Hell of a scarf you got there, too."

"Ah – not mine," the boy paused. "I didn't _steal_ it, it's. It's a mate's." His chin tilted, a little; he tucked his nose down in against the wool. _Ah._ Well-loved, thought Eddie Whist.

"She make it for you?" Eddie grinned, winking.

"Er," said the boy. He sniffed, the train whistled in the silence. "No. Gave it to me."

"Awfully nice of her," murmured Eddie, and tried to think of the last time he'd had a girlfriend worth tokens. Olivia, maybe, but that was three years ago and three years before he'd had no job, no self-worth, and no aspirations of – well, anything. Smart lad, thought Eddie Whist, and might have meant it, this time.

"Yeah. Too, sometimes," said the boy, frowning against the thick gold stripes. "Too much, I mean."

"Too nice?" said Eddie.

"Yeah," said the boy, teeth on edge against his bottom lip. "An' don't try'n tell me otherwise because you haven't met – it's. Fuck. It's not like -- It's just hard to explain. All right?"

Eddie held up a hand. "I get it, mate. S'all right."

"All right," said the boy, and twined his fingers in the fringe.

Ain't polite to stare, Mum always told him, but when the boy fell asleep a few minutes out of Rugby Station, it wasn't easy not to. It wasn't easy _not_ to catalogue the little pieces of youth and man – the long limbs folded in a way that was more accustomed to smaller bits of himself, the stubble on his chin, the way the fist closed on his own knee, in the wool of the scarf, like it was used to having the fur of a pet (Eddie knew about this one – when Cherished the Cat died he slept holding his own shirtfront for _months_ ). Rather young, for a stray, though. Might have been rounding on seventeen, thought Eddie. Eighteen at the most, though people always do look younger when they're sleeping. Though, thought Eddie Whist, most people don't fall asleep in front of perfect strangers on the train to the Midlands with mud on their boots and their girlfriend's scarves tugged tight enough round their throats to choke from caring.

"Birmingham!" Came the shout from down the corridor, there was steam outside the window, and the spire of a church in the distance, behind the looping power lines and the low clouds. "Birmingham Station!"

The boy was rubbing his eyes, and Eddie nodded. "You off, then?"

"Yeah." A hesitance in his legs, the lazy colour of his eyes, the way he gripped the edge of the seat for balance when the train wasn't moving.

"Well. Well, I'm Eddie Whist, by the way," said Eddie, extending a hand across the gap.

The boy shook his hand from his sleeve. "Sirius Black," he said, in the smoothest voice Eddie'd heard from him all morning; like he'd settled into something warm, comfortable, a little silky.

"Well, you – you take care of yourself, eh, Sirius?"

"Yeah," said the boy, a laugh choking the curve of his mouth, all tight and wound up and knotted. It made Eddie's stomach ache. "Yeah, right."

"Happy Christmas, eh?" And he smiled at Sirius Black, because how could you not, when it was, after all.

The boy paused in the doorway, steam billowing past in winter sunlight outside the window, and his profile in sharp, dark relief. The languid tremor had evaporated from his face, a sudden stillness made his shoulders upright, his eyes intelligent and bright, his presence bigger, his stance wider.

"You like gold, Eddie?" said Sirius Black, and Eddie blinked.

"Erm, well, _sure_ , but – "

"You've got a use for it, I mean?" One of Sirius Black's hands was in his jacket pocket; there was a clinking sound.

"Doesn't everyone?" said Eddie Whist, and thought of heat, food, duck in the oven, _five golden rings_.

"Nah. Nah," said Sirius Black, and looked down at his boots. "Think I got what I need." And he tossed a heavy blue-velvet bag across the compartment. It hit Eddie in the lap, and a coin spilled out across Eddie's knee: big, thick, and gleaming gold.

"Wha - "

"Mine to do with as I please, they said, didn't they?" said Sirius Black, from across the room, and the train whistled, almost drowning out his voice, not that there was much sense in it anyway. "That's _my_ right, so fuck 'em, right, Eddie? And you know what? Happy bloody Christmas, too, while we're at it."

"Mate – this is – " Eddie held up the coin to the window, and it caught the sun, threw it full into Eddie's face with a rush of white warmth, like gingerbread and hearth butter and with a sound like a velvet whisper, so that when he looked up, and Sirius Black was a figure made of fog and winter ice in the sun, he was sure the word – before it melted – was just the sound of the train whistle in the air.

" _Oblivate_ ," it said.

And so.

And so, it was a little while later that Eddie Whist woke up in Uttoxeter, unhurt and warm; satchel heavier than when he set out, and his heart happily confused with the lightness of the world.

* * *


End file.
